Shelves are structures used to support and organize materials of various weights and sizes. Retail stores use shelves for a variety of reasons, such as for making efficient use of space for storage of storefront inventory, and making those items more visible and readily accessible to shoppers. By displaying items in an attractive manner, shoppers may be encouraged to browse and purchase the items. When a shopper takes an item from a row of products on a shelf, the next item remains recessed relative to the front of the shelf, thereby causing the shelf to appear uneven or insufficiently stocked. The remaining, recessed items can also be more difficult for shoppers to access. Some retail store workers may be given the responsibility to manually stock the shelves with new products and to periodically move unsold product toward the front of the shelves.
Dividers can be used to organize rows of items on shelves. By separating rows of items, unintentional disturbance of items in adjacent rows can be reduced when items in a row are handled by workers and shoppers. Consideration must be given, however, to provide enough space around each row for workers to reach behind the rearmost item(s) in order to bring them forward.
In some circumstances, the dividers may include pusher arms that can advance products toward the front of the corresponding shelf. As such, when a product is removed from the front of a row, the pusher arm can advance the remaining products in the row to move forward toward the front of the shelf. When the dividers and other related components are assembled to a shelf, some of the connecting structures are susceptible to breakage (e.g., due to stress concentrations at the connecting structures). Furthermore, some store workers may find difficulty in properly aligning the dividers relative to the shelf and other components during the assembly process.